doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

Continuing on the reasons why a gun might carry a name that is not to be found in the usual published lists of gunmakers is if it was built by a Birmingham workshop for a retailer of goods, and that retailer's name is engraved on the gun. Here's an example.

Fidele Primavesi was not a gunmaker, and nowhere in any reference lists of gunmakers and gun trade workers will you find his name or those of his sons. He's not in Nigel Brown's books, or in Geoffrey Boothroyd's. This is because he was a general china, hardware and leatherware merchant, and not a guild member of any sort. He was also a wealthy landowner, and an active member of Welsh society. An immigrant born in Italy in 1839, he settled in Cardiff, Wales, around 1850, and built up his business in Cardiff, and eventually to Swansea, Newport (140 Commercial St.), and London. The business was initially named Primavesi & Son, changing to Primavesi & Sons, and it was active until 1915. His wife, Sarah, was the sister of Alfred Thomas, 1st Baron Pontypridd, Mayor of Cardiff and MP for East Glamorgan -- good family connections to have if you're in business! Primavesi's main business was located in at 6 James St., Docks, Cardiff, and he sold anything a person might need, from nautical instruments, to Welsh and Staffordshire pottery, to carriages, to serviceable arms, and much more. Try a Google Images search on the name, and it brings up myriad items marked with the Primavesi name, including china dishes of every description, telescopes and sextants, the Royal Carriage made for the Princesses of Surakarta, Java, and a 12-shot pinfire revolver sold at auction some years ago. As a well-to-do merchant, he did not live in a tiny gunmaker's shop, but rather in a grand house, Pen-y-lan House, in the fashionable Pen-y-lan district of the city (the house cost £5000 to built, a very large sum in those days). The coal trade was the main source of commercial prosperity for Cardiff (with Newcastle second -- which begs the question why the British idiom for futility, "carrying coals to Newcastle," didn't mention that city instead), and in 1881 the 250-ft cargo steamship named the SS Fidele Primavesi was launched to carry coal -- a pretty good indication of the influence and regard the man held in the business community.

As befitting a hardware-store gun built to order from a Birmingham workshop, today's example is very plain. The original quality would have been serviceable, but it was not the status object that so many pinfire game guns were in high British society. This was the kind of gun that you added to your order of household goods before you boarded a ship in the Cardiff docks for distant horizons. As this particular gun was unearthed in the USA, it may well have been carried over by a new immigrant, where having an English-made gun had a certain appeal. I have no idea how many guns Fidele Primavesi might have sold, as no records have survived, and in my research only a handful of Primavesi-marked arms have surfaced to date -- none of them shotguns. Ironically, a low-grade British pinfire is more uncommon than the higher-grade pieces, as they were built from lesser materials and more likely to be shot out and discarded at some point during the last 150 years, rather than kept, treasured and preserved.

The gun is a 16-bore double-bite screw grip rotary under-lever pinfire sporting gun, serial number 3335 (which may be Primavesi's numbering system, or that of the actual Birmingham maker). The 28 7/8" damascus barrels have London proofs, and the barrels are stamped "Roses Patent No. 20". The Rose Brothers of the Hales-Owen Mills & Forge were barrel makers located in Halesowen, Worcestershire, operating between 1860 and 1892. They developed, and were known for, a patented method for machine-production of damascus barrels. These barrels were undoubtedly cheaper than hand-forged barrels, even at the low wages paid to the craftsmen of the day. The top rib is signed "F. Primavisi & Sons Cardiff" (note the different spelling of the family name), and the back-action locks are signed "F. Primavisi & Sons." While some trade goods marked "Primavisi" are known, what is unclear is whether this is an alternate spelling, or an engraver's misprint. The wholesale cost of the gun would have been low, and certainly not worth sending it back to the engraver to be corrected! I did consider whether it was a counterfeit, but all other marks are genuine, and if you're going to cheat you are hardly going to use an ironmonger's name to sneak your goods! I'm guessing it was an engraving error.

The gun has plain line border engraving, plain but well-proportioned rounded hammers, and the fore-end has a simple horn inlay. However, the under-lever lacks the graceful fitting to the curve of the trigger guard bow that is found on better guns. With the passing of time wavy lines from the forging process have become apparent on the action body, perhaps as a result of insufficient hardening or inferior steel. It would have been an inexpensive gun, and yet it is not without a certain degree of charm, and the machine-forged barrels are quite attractive. Victorian guns were made for all tastes and all purses. The bores are pitted, and the gun weighs a light 6 lb 2 oz.









As an aside, general merchants have had a long history of putting their name on guns made by others. In Canada, Hudson's Bay Company-marked guns are collector items now, as are guns marked and sold by the T. Eaton company. In the USA, merchants such as Sears & Roebuck had their own brand (JC Higgins), and I'm sure there were many others.